Written by Parth Jha
It was 24th March. The virus had reached India and was slowly increasing. By then, my family grew very fond of news. We started to watch a lot of it every night before dinner. But that day’s news brought to me and Aarav our worst nightmare.
“PM Modi has declared a nationwide lockdown for 21 days!!” The news reporter yelled. Everyone was worried and scared. I felt a cold shiver going through my body. My brain shouted, “Stone Age! Stone Age!! Everything is reset! Back to the basics; safety, food, and clothes, no entertainment, no socialization, and no school!!” At the same time, it struck my mind. Buying groceries was now no less than hunting for food, with continuous fear of getting infected today and not getting enough supply (or being attacked by animals) then. Though the situation was not that bad at the time, my parents stocked up supplies for 3 months, just in case.
The starting days of the lockdown were better than my expectations. My allotted time for watching videos and playing Minecraft increased, and, at least at that time, I had almost nothing to study. So, it was fun. Mom tried new recipes almost every day, so my Gustatory and Olfactory senses were content. And I even started learning how to cook food!
In the meantime, Aarav was having fun too. He was now allowed to watch a ton of TV, and he could even wake up and sleep late! Although he was busy again when school started, he and his dad started to play cricket for many hours. He just loved it. He also got the idea to exercise from tutors on YouTube, which turned out to be really helpful for him!
Meanwhile, I learnt how to make a basic dal-rice vegetable meal, poha, and a few veggies like pumpkin and bottle gourd. But then, all the fun started to gradually fade away. I was getting bored by loneliness and isolation. And it was affecting my psychology. I could imagine sleeping in a dark cave at night while I lay on my bed. Sure, I had my dad, mom, and my younger brother Kabir, but I wanted to meet everyone else. In fact, all my friends and family felt the same. We termed the lockdown as ‘Stone Age’ even in our normal conversations, except the fact that they didn’t have gadgets and the internet to provide some respite!
I wanted to sit in those trains and flights again. I wanted to meet everyone just like we all did in the previous years. I wanted to get a bite at all the restaurants with my friends or my family. I wanted to play those small games of Cricket and Kabaddi with everyone. Video calls did cause some interactions, but it was much different than the real face-to-face meeting. It was just like the loneliness humans might have felt when they lived in very small groups a few million years ago.
By the time the lockdown was extended further by PM Modi, I was assigned 4 ‘tasks’ to do by my parents. These are tasks to study: In-syllabus study, Extra-syllabus study, Handwriting, and Vocabulary. Every day, because of these, I remained busy for the entire day. It just increased my tiredness. It was kind of like the tiredness people felt after hunting and running for hours back then.
Suddenly, something struck my mind. We are so much advanced today because of the curiosity of the people of the Stone Age. If they can invent the wheel and discover fire without any facility, why can’t I do something? If they can do it then, I can do it anytime! I felt a gush of energy flowing through my body.
While I was in it, Aarav learnt and did a lot of things. He finally learnt to use a laptop instead of a PC or mobile, created a ton of new things in our favorite video game, Minecraft, and became an expert at Physics and hardware,
Back here, I thought of doing something related to Minecraft as well, but without any screen time. But I didn’t think that how will I do it. My mind kept saying, “Think, Parth, think. Think hard.” At last, I concluded, “I will draw Minecraft Art!”
I never thought I would be able to do this. But with my Minecraft skills, I improved in this section.
I got a lot of appreciation for my Minecraft Art, which pushed me to use my thinking cap even more. I thought of playing Tambola with my family, but then I realized that this idea was just too common at the time. Still, I proposed this idea to my parents, and we did play. It was an amazing experience, and, as a reward, I earned ₹300!
Back at Aarav's place, the day he had waited for finally came- his birthday! But the problem was that we and our friends didn't know how celebrate it. We couldn't come to his house, as no one's parents allowed it. Aarav then suddenly had an idea. "Let's have a Zoom meeting! That way we will be able to communicate and play Minecraft together!"
"That could work!" I exclaimed. And so we did. We talked for hours, saw the cake-cutting ceremony at his house through camera, and played Minecraft together! It was so much fun! A little too much, by the way...
Also, the play, at last, ended up in a Mega Minecraft PvP Battle!!!
I also started to regain my interest in studies. Another task was added into my list, which was music. Because I started to focus on the five tasks even more, there was a noticeable change in my handwriting, vocabulary, French (Which was also a part of the vocabulary task), studies, and my keyboard skills.
For other types of family entertainment, we played small indoor and outdoor games, like Hopscotch, Ludo King, and Pillow Fights.
Apart from his Birthday, the days Aarav enjoyed the most were the Summer Vacations. He finally fulfilled his dream of his 24x7 PS4 Marathon! He was already having a lot of pressure from school, so it was a reliefer from that.
On the other hand, I was gaining weight very quickly, and my parents were worried. So, they started jogging with me every day. Because I was very unfit and overweight at that time, they had to cut my diet a little. But at last, the end result was good. I lost 8 kilograms of weight! I even started to look slimmer and fitter.
Even Aarav's dad hired a personal tutor for exercise. Aarav said that he made him do way too much workout, but still, he kind of liked it. I wonder how...
Here, in our family, festivals and prayers have great importance. There was a prayer organized in my uncle’s house one day, and we had no choice but to attend it. We took as many precautions as we can. When we came back, we thought, “Why not meet people more often like this?”
We went to Rajgarh and Indore to visit my family and started to go to picnics. Most of the time, we cycled or jogged to the place where we decided to go to. We went to the Kolar Dam, Kerwa Dam, and many more places by cycle.
Here comes the best part. As we couldn’t celebrate Raksha Bandhan together because all my mom’s side turned COVID-19 positive, we made video calls and bought Raakhis. My sisters tied the Raakhis on the phone, and here, mom tied it simultaneously on my hand. They touched the sweets to the camera, and here, mom gave me a bite of a chocolate. In that way, we celebrated Raksha Bandhan!
Also, if it weren’t for the lockdown, I would’ve never known about Nearpod, Adobe Spark, Ludo King, paint.net, create.kahoot.it, Wakelet, Flipgrid, and other applications or websites. They helped me so much!
At last, the lockdown became really fun after a month or two. Both of us will really miss these times. I got to do many household chores, know more about my house, and interact more with my family, and Aarav realized and started to look after his health, got a lot of free time, and learnt new things. Thanks a lot for all you have given us, lockdown!